Ralph Townsend (headmaster)

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Ralph Douglas Townsend (born 13 December 1951, in Nedlands, Western Australia)[1] is Headmaster of Winchester College.[2][3] He was previously Headmaster of Oundle School[4] and before that Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School.

Biography

Early life

He was educated at Scotch College.He went on to read English at the University of Western Australia, having won a Commonwealth Scholarship. He then began his graduate studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Career

After brief teaching appointments at Dover College and Abingdon School, he proceeded to further study at Oxford. He was first Senior Scholar at Keble College, then a Junior Research Fellow, Tutor and Dean of Degrees at Lincoln College, where he was the Anglican chaplain. He taught in the Theology Faculty at Oxford.

He took up a teaching post at Eton College in 1985. He left as Head of English in 1989 to become Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School. Whilst in Sydney, Townsend was Patron of the Australian Musicians' Academy and President of the New South Wales Classical Association. After ten years in that post, he returned to England to become Headmaster of Oundle School.[5] In 2005 he was appointed Headmaster of Winchester, the first Roman Catholic to hold that post since the Reformation.[6] In 2011 he was invested a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.[7]

He has written books, articles and reviews in the areas of church history, religious literature and education.[8]

He has been a Governor of Terra Nova School (Cheshire) 1999-2003, Old Buckenham Hall School (Suffolk) 1999-2006, Ardvreck School (Crieff, Scotland) 2000-2005, Ampleforth College (North Yorkshire) 2003-2006, Bramcote Lorne School (Nottinghamshire) 2003-2005, Mowden Hall School (Northumberland) 2000-2007, and Worth School (West Sussex) 2004-2010. From 2005-2011 he was a Trustee of the United Church Schools Trust and an adviser to the United Learning Trust. From 2005-2013 he was a Governor of St Swithun's School (Winchester). From 2007-2013 he was Adviser to the Raffles Institution in Singapore. He is currently a member of the Court of the University of Southampton,Midhurst Rother College[9][10] (United Learning Trust Academy), St John's School Beaumont (Windsor) and the Dillijan International School (Armenia). From 2005-2014 he was a Governor of The Pilgrims' School (Winchester) and a Trustee of the Cothill Educational Trust, which operates Cothill House, Chandlings School, and the Château de Sauveterre. He is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the African Leadership Academy and is a Patron of the National College of Music (London). He is a Trustee of The Education Fellowship.

In 2010 he became Dean of a group of ten schools known as the Winchester International Symposium, each of which has agreed to meet annually in each of the schools in rotation, when senior pupils and staff will study an aspect of global development; the member schools are African Leadership Academy (South Africa), Colegio Claustro Moderno (Colombia), Garodia International Centre for Learning (India), Johannes Kepler Grammar School (Czech Republic), Karachi Grammar School (Pakistan), Montgomery Bell Academy (USA), Nada High School (Japan), Raffles Institution (Singapore), Shiyan Co-operation High School (China) and Winchester College (UK).

He is English Editor of the World Leading Schools Association Record, a bilingual journal of educational dialogue between China and the West. In July 2012 he was a key speaker at the Eighth Symposium in Shanghai on "Manpower Structure and Education Development in the International Metroplolis". In October 2012 he gave a lecture to the inaugural meeting of the London Chapter of the Friends of the African Leadership Academy at University College London.

He is an Honorary Liveryman of the Grocers' Company.

References

  1. ↑ "Births". The West Australian. 18 December 1951. p. 16. Retrieved 2012-08-18. 
  2. ↑ 'Townsend, Dr Ralph Douglas', Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2010 (accessed 23 September 2011).
  3. ↑ "The long view". The Guardian. 29 November 2005. Retrieved 1 September 2011. 
  4. ↑ "Public school backs academy plan". BBC News. 14 February 2003. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
  5. ↑ Garner, Richard (14 February 2003). "Boarding school is first to take up City Academy plan". The Independent. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
  6. ↑ "Catholic first". The Tablet. 17 July 2004. 
  7. ↑ http://www.winchestercollege.org/headmaster
  8. ↑ Publications Ed M.M. Clare, Encountering the Depths DLT 1980;Faith, Prayer and Devotion Blackwell 1983;‘Nicolas Zernov' in Fairacres Chronicle November 1980;‘Mother Mary Clare and the Anglican Tradition' in Christian 1981;‘J.H. Newman' and `The Caroline Divines' in A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality SCM 1983; ‘The Catholic Revival in the Church of England' in The Study of Spirituality SCM 1986; Articles on E.B. Pusey, Nathaniel Spinckes, Peter Sterry, Darwell Stone and Thomas Traherne in Dictionnaire de Spiritualite Brussels 1987-91; ‘The Place of Sport in Education' in Proceedings of the Teachers' Guild of New South Wales 1990; ‘The Education Industry' in The Sydney Papers Vol.2 No.2 1990 ‘Education and Business Ethics' in Foundations No.6 November 1991; ‘Even a Good Education Gives Rise to Problems' in Proceedings of the Teachers' Guild of New South Wales 1991-2; also in The Educational Forum Vol.58 No.1 1993; ‘The Sins of Success: the Authority to Change' in The Ethics of Teaching and Learning IPA Education Policy Unit 1993; `What's Going to Happen to the Tots?' in Independence (AHISA) Vol.19 No.1 1994; Gen Ed Australian Studies in History & Letters 4 Vols SGS Press 1996-2000; ‘From Here to Downunder and Back Again’ in The Isis Magazine 27 2000; ‘What We Do Well’ Conference &Common Room 2004; Sanderson of Oundle (Ed) Culverwell 2006; ‘The Cambridge Companion to J.H.Newman’ in The Way April 2010
  9. ↑ "Governors 2010 -2011". Midhurst Rother College. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
  10. ↑ Mansell, Warwick (18 February 2010). "A bridge across the great divide: Winchester College joins the academy programme". The Independent. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 

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